briangray

Similar story. We moved to DrawIO desktop. I now also use it as a replacement for whiteboarding and have it open in most meetings.

I have a good amount of experience with this and wrote up a very long recommendation. Many of the parents I've worked with have different reasons for introducing their kids to tech. Without knowing your 'why', I thought I'd just post the bullet points.

- Set up a mini PC/Raspberry Pi. Use a simple Linux distro or older version of Windows and install GCompri on it. No need for internet. Show them how to open notepad, paint, and just let them play.

- At a later age, build a PC with them. Linux Mint gives all the basic software needed. Let them continue to explore.

- Set up some tools for access control and monitoring. Then talk to them about the internet and slowly introduce them to it.

Overall, this has been a fantastic way to introduce technology, its benefits and downsides, without giving in to the firehose of the modern internet or strictly blocking it out entirely.

A great start! Congratulate them on keeping the scope small. That's important when starting out. Leaves room to build on later as they're learning.

Recommendations: - It's hard to tell when health is altered. Perhaps add a temporary color change to the health bar to inform players of the change. Or start to build in animated health that reduces the red fill with the number. - Some abilities require charge, but I couldn't find where that was tracked. Another counter could be added to show this number and any increase. - Add score for the battle. It could track correct answers, or hits, or anything that might be fun. Later versions could include a score/tracker for total monsters fought.

Seconding this. Not as a qualified frontend dev, but as a backend dev forced to learn frontend in a short time frame.

Work required some frontend tools with no devs available and I was assigned the work. The folks who would usually do that work were pushing me towards React, Vue, and Jquery solutions. I took a look at each, knew I would be responsible for understanding and maintaining the whole systems, and went with vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS instead.

Started out returning simple pages. Added styling to meet requirements. A lot of it was embedded in <style> tags until I found a way to organize it into separate classes. Then added JS for event handlers, listeners, and scripting the simple the pieces that needed to be automated.

That system has been running in production for years now. New features and bugs are easy for me to identify and add or resolve. It's also given me a solid base understanding to migrate components to JQuery and build other systems in required framework. Zero regrets about that choice. It was simple to learn, quick to build, and solid.

I have tried a lot of split keyboards. Haven't tried the Glove80, but I have used the Kinesis (Advantage and 360) and other scooped keyboards. They feel very naturally ergonomic. Allowing your fingers to move in a way that feels more comfortable to your hand. The split design furthers that by putting your hands at the distance they should be separated. The pros: very comfortable resting position, minimal hand, wrist, and finger travel. The cons: Size and dedicating yourself to a unique layout. The Kinesis (even the 360) takes up a lot of space. The bigger issue for me though was that I had to retrain my brain for standard layouts every time I sat at a computer with a normal keyboard. Imagine building the most comfortable bike in the world, but then not being able to ride in other cities because 'your' bike is at home.

Long story, I found the UHK to be the best option. While it doesn't have the scooped or natural key placement, the layout being standard staggered allows for existing muscle memory with all the benefits of the split and tilted design. I now have two UHKs for home and office. And I would buy another if they weren't so easy to travel with.

Responding to you because Masters of Doom is the right answer here. It shares a lot of details from Doom Guy, but gives a more complete timeline and better views, from multiple sides. It's a book that just makes you want to hack a game together. That's coming from someone who wasn't old enough to idolize the devs when they hit celebrity status.

Other books I really enjoyed:

- Spelunky by Derek Yu: Written by the sole developer of the game. Covers idea to development to release. Really captures a nice feeling of indie solo game making.

- The WoW Diary: Focused development 'journals' from one of the WoW level designers. Has a lot of original concept art and early alpha images. Goes over a lot of history and is just a fun read with some good insight.

- Half-Lift 2: Raising the Bar: Concept art, journals, iterations, and details from devs and HL2. Simply a fantastic insight into what they went through progressing from Gold Source to the Source Engine. Where Masters of Doom gives the written history of Doom, this book gives the nuts and bolts of HL2 and CSS. It is highly sought after by fans and developers alike and can be hard to come by.

I've done similar group gaming. I would recommend the following two games. The first is more casual and just fun to watch. The second is one of the greatest narratives communicated through game design. Haven't played the recent remake that came out this year, but I will stand by that statement for the original. Make sure everyone has a chance to try the controls to fully appreciate it.

- A Short Hike: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1055540/A_Short_Hike/

- Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons: https://store.steampowered.com/app/225080/Brothers__A_Tale_o...

I may be reading too far into it, but I think he _is_ mocking his colleague by responding to questions with similar questions.

> Are your emotions pure?

Are you thinking through this with clear thought and emotion?

> Are your nerves adjustable?

Do you feel so strongly about this that it has affected you this whole time, since spring?

> How do you stand in relation to the potato?

Can you not support yourself? Are you as wellrounded or less so than a potato?

> Should it still be Constantinople?

Can the outcome not change even when history repeats itself?

The last one to me seems like the indicator that these questions are not nonsensical. As it is is direct reference to the colleague's question about history repeating itself and refers to a location which changed back and forth numerous times.

My use-case is slightly different, but I use Proxmox for my home server and would recommend it. Especially if you're familiar with linux systems or want to learn about them which I've done through the years I've been using this setup.

My server was originally a single debian installation set up to host local services for things like git. That grew into hosting a site, vpn, then some multiplayer game servers. When I reached a point where too many things were installed on single machine, I looked at vm options. I've used VMWare/VSphere professionally, but settled on Proxmox for these main reasons: easy to set up and update, easy to build/copy vms, simple way to split physical resources, monitoring of each vm, and simple backup and restores. All without any weird licensing.

That server houses 4 vms right now. That might be a bit much for your mini pc but you could do a couple. The multiplayer servers are the main hog so I isolate resources for that. The windows machine is only for development which isn't your exact use case. I can say however that I've never had issue when I need it. Only thing I can't speak for is the need for graphics passthrough.

My kid started with computers around the same age. Using mostly text editors to type in random things on my computer. It was a great way to explore letters and learn to use a keyboard.

Following that we 'built' a computer together out of paper. This allowed me to show each part and what it did to give a base understanding. Then I let them hook up the RPi to a monitor and keyboard. The device was configured beforehand and had all the updates and software needed.

I chose not to connect it to the internet. That's how I learned computers and I thought it would be a good way for my kid to learn. Turned out really well and documentation is available on the device if you show them how to search for it.

As for educational software, I highly recommend GCompris[1]. It's just an awesome set of tools disguised as games. Accessible for a wide range of ages. I let my kid run wild in there and I'm blown away by the things it's helped teach them.

Last thing I'll mention is very specific to my interests, but I installed a few roguelikes. Easily accessible terminal games. Some well known like Nethack and others simple browser games I've made myself. All of them have gotten play time. In an age where graphics have overtaken good gameplay, I wanted to present games that weren't all lights and colors. Most of them are stripped down to learning the world and problem solving. Being turn based helps give time for them to think about each obstacle. And I feel like the constant death and resetting has helped alleviate early troubles they had with failure.

- [1] https://www.gcompris.net/index-en.html

I would not recommend Blood Sweat and Pixels. While it does have details on publishing decisions and crunch of making games, it has little insight into any actual game development. It's more of a sensation piece on how difficult games are to make. GP seemed to be looking for design and pattern references.

Your line of thinking isn't wrong. It is very common for the new hot game, taking up all your kid's time, to be vilified. Especially by those who don't understand its appeal. However, I think there is a bit of a gap between the Satanic Panic and modern SAS games. I don't have the exact words for it. The psychological drive to play is there for both. D&D would better fit into a long-timeline hold where you have fun playing and still enjoy the thought of playing even if you haven't played in years. Fortnite, and many other modern multiplayer/live service games, have a constant, short-timeline hold. Where there is an addictive drive to continue every second. Playing nonstop even if you're not enjoying it.

Awesome, thank you for digging that up.

It does not. Shows the logged-out experience and prefills a demo user when you select 'Sign In'. Simple click shows that. Which is a great way to demonstrate each side of the software.

I agree. I think I like this. Enough to try it out. I've seen hundreds of to-do apps, local, cloud, and hosted. This one having the timeline visible on the front page is appealing. Too many apps try to obfuscate and obscure the details. For memos and notes, I feel like review is an important aspect. Having visibility of _when_ you wrote something can be just as important as what you wrote. It's kept simply here, but still functional.

This app does seem to be aiming for a collaborative experience. With that it would be nice to see some sort of comment or thread for posts. I.E. Create a to-do post that others can respond to without directly editing. That way memos aren't kept here while discussion is in Slack or Teams.

There is this ever present desire to constantly learn. I have no idea where it comes from. Haven't always felt that way but I know it affects most people I interact with. Some point to social media and the constant need to keep up. Maybe that's it. In any case, I've found it to be an issue. Continuously trying to learn has brought me to a point where I was skipping around too much and not learning anything. Depth of engagement got a lot better when I stopped to focus on things I was doing.

This led me to take a break at the end of November. I have classes I'm planning to take in January. But so far the last few weeks have been nice forcing myself to _not_ look up tutorials or read articles on new tech stacks or project. I'd recommend it to anyone else who feels that weight of learning. Or anyone who may be trying to squeeze training into small segments of time. I guess I'd call it learning downtime.

Come January though, I'm jumping into self studied math (which I haven't studied since college), a bit of web dev (probably Rails), and a new language (maybe Russian).

Hey, I recognize your site!

Both 'Troll and Flame' and 'Friend or Foe' were top results for Dragon Magazine galleries when I was searching for a specific issue several years ago. Ended up finding it (#142) from the cover art. I bought it as a gift for the person who taught me to play tabletop games. They used that issue which included some details for 2nd Edition and the Warhammer RPG. Thanks for preserving this content! Especially in the simple format you've presented it in.

I read a lot in my teens, but was never good at it. Computers have always held my attention better. I've gotten much more into reading _after_ having a kid because I wanted them to love books and be better at reading then I am.

Started by reading to my kid before bed. Even at a really young age when the book didn't mean anything, it still seemed to calm them. It allowed me the opportunity to A) read anything I wanted, B) build a foundational hobby over time, and C) spend time with my child. They now bring me books (usually whatever story we're reading at the time, but occasionally a short kids book) and I make a point to take a break and read to them. Because of that and other events this year, I've been able to complete dozens of books.

Agreed. Should have gone with something catchy, like AceOfPaste.

I believe the key benefit of small games is not the minimalism or short duration, but the forced condensing of core gameplay. Essentially bundling the fun without the excess fluff. I've heard developers constantly note that features will be dropped and your favorite implementation will hit the chopping block when making games. In the case of small games, you're turning this idea into a feature. Finding what can be stripped away to focus on engagement. Not what massive world can I develop to creature a robust experience, but what bits of the world can I shave to make a fulling experience.

This is a decent way of demonstrating the 'how' of FB data collection. Many people still think of data gathering as read from older click-collection methods and less about active focus data that comes from many minor browser details being monitored. The site could use some tethers to fake (or real) trend and analysis networks to build on that awareness. Also could very much use expansion of their profile results. Good stuff though.

A combination of general use and learning.

General: Using T-UI because I'm not a fan of modern touch UIs, but it is limited to Android functions like messages and launching apps. Anything beyond that (SSH, text editing, web calls, etc) I do through Termux. I wish I could combine the two more seamlessly, but it's effortless to switch between the two.

Learning: Wanted to learn to use vim. Termux provided simple vim access and vimtutor. I've also used Termux to freshen up on languages and write a few scripts. Namely, differences between Python2.7 to Python3 which I didn't look into until this year. Starting on C and/or Rust soon.

Are you asking specifically for notes or as the development environment that I _do_ live in?

For notes I'm (currently) using Obsidian.md, which has many of the same benefits of the previously mentioned systems. I settled on it because it allowed me to easily import notes from the previous apps and they are stored as simple markdown files. Which means I can access them using vi if I'm on a system that doesn't have Obsidian installed.

While I enjoy VSCode, most of my development is done in Visual Studio. And occasionally vi/vim for smaller applications.

I went through a similar tool search (i.e. zettelkasten, roam, notable.md, dendron, etc). With the same notions of dendron operating only in VSCode. Long story, it didn't fit well for me. While dendron operated and was structured well, VSCode was just too slow to launch and not widely available enough for my use case. May be important to note though that I don't 'live' in VSCode like many others do. I settled on other applications which allow me to directly interact with the files inside and outside the application.

[1] I believe this is the one you're referencing from Elliot Dallen. It's a very insightful and beautiful post. And the reason I now read articles referencing old age, which once didn't register with me as much.

  "Nobody should lament getting one year older, another grey hair or a wrinkle. Instead, be pleased that you’ve made it." - Elliot Dallen

1 - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/07/termin...

Any (most?) phone chords work for this. I wanted a longer one and it made for a good laugh when I asked my partner for one as a gift.

I use a UHK daily. Can't mitigate those concerns, but I can provide my experience with it:

1) I enjoy it enough to carry it when I need to. I found a softshell case at a music shop that fits the UHK and my laptop surprisingly well. Not addressing preference, simply noting that it is more portable than other split boards I've used.

2) The UHK is built well and very sturdy. I've never questioned its durability as it's constructed better than most of my other keyboards (except for maybe my Leopold).

I use it enough that I've proposed getting a second one. Not because I'm worried about production or failure, but because it is a good keyboard and I use multiple computers. Though with the portability and a few cons (addressed in my other lengthy comment), I've held off from buying another for now.

I use the UHK exactly for this. Keyboard commands + mouse layer keys for those UIs that are pointer-only.

While it doesn't replace a mouse completely (I wouldn't use it for games), it does work for all my day-to-day work (development, writing, workflows) with shortcuts and the built in mouse layer.

I've used the UHK daily for a bit over a year now. Planned on writing a full review (which I feel the product deserves), but I'll mention some notes here.

I initially purchased the keyboard to address wrist pains. Likely from my years of development and gaming. Looked at many available split keyboard options. Tested a coworker's Keyboardio which was very comfortable, but pretty bulky and had a high learning curve for its non-standard layout. This was only a problem when I needed to switch back to typing on a laptop. That doesn't happen often but it did slow me down. Felt the same way about the Ergodox. Very comfortable, but took a while to get used (and then a while more to switch back to standard laptop) and it wasn't easy to cart around. Although, a benefit I found from the Ergodox was the fully programmability. This includes mouse programming. While it doesn't compare to having a pointer device, having mouse keys programmed allowed me to use the mouse without moving my hands away from the keyboard. I try to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible, but today's design is very mouse/pointer heavy. With some site operations being mouse-only. Having that functionality (while not perfect) is great for me.

The main features I ended up looking for came out of testing those two boards: - Split keyboard - Close to standard layout - Portability - Mouse functionality

The two boards I found that fit these were the UHK and the Kinesis RGB Edge that other commenters have mentioned. While I couldn't test the UHK, I did get to try the Edge out at PAX last year. I really like it. It's not the same comfort as the Keyboardio and the Ergodox. But your fingers already know where to go without trying or having to learn anything knew. Keymapping worked really well. The macro keys were nice, though I didn't have time to play with them. It's somewhere in the line of 80% of a full standard keyboard. Which is enough for most. It did however lack in the portability department and didn't have a mouse layer. Not deal breakers, but lacked everything I was looking for. I'd like to try the Redox(w) at some point. At the time though, I ended up taking the leap and purchasing the UHK. It took over a month to arrive. Here's a list of what I like about it:

  - Can be used split or combined into a single board. I've found few split boards can do this. Helps with portability. 
  - Tilting works well and is very stable. Though it requires tools to change the tilting.
  - Build quality is great. There is a nice (steel?) frame that the switches are mounted to. This quality extends to the wrist rests which have a nice metal plate to attach them to the base of the board.
  - Each key I need to press is within reach of my fingers. The Ergodox and Edge had some keys which were out of reach for me.
  - The mapping software is superb! I really appreciate the design and some additional features from that. The very first thing I changed was setting `/~ to Esc. In my mind, this should be the default for any keyboard with the word 'hacking' in the title.
  - While they seemed gimmicky at first, the 'mouse' buttons on the bottom frame of the board are easy to reach and use. Since they are a unique features to this board, I use them to active that mouse layer which works very well.
  - The small profiles allows it to fit really well in a small audio equipment case which I found at a music shop. Again, something difficult to do with the larger, awkwardly shaped boards.
  - Most importantly to me, my wrist pain has reduced dramatically.

In regards to the wrist pain, I will say that my case seems to be more related to wrist movement than wrist angle. The keyboard helps with both. If I had a way to reduce wrist movement with a standard board (not needing a mouse), I likely would have been fine continuing to use one. While the pros have resulted in a board that I'm happy with, I feel I should also list some cons:

  - The switches (MX Clears in my case) feel extremely dry and gritty. This isn't the case with my other keyboards with Clears. I've tried lubricating them but they still have a bit of grit.
  - The standard keycaps are not great. While it's clear the board has a lot of work put into it, the keycaps seem to be an area ignored or sacrificed for cost resulting in thinner (ABS?) plastic. This would be okay but some keys are not standard size so it is difficult to find higher quality replacements. I bought mine with blank caps and a spare set for when these get worn and glossy. If I had one request it would be a replacement set of keycaps from UHK in a higher quality plastic.
  - Every once in a while (maybe once a month) a layer gets stuck. I'll activate the FN layer by holding down a key and releasing that key doesn't deactivate it like it should. By that time I've already tried to type something else only for it to respond with weird behavior I didn't expect because FN is still active. I then have to press the FN key again to deactivate.
  - The LED read-out only works for the built in mod-layers (i.e. QWR for QWERTY, DVK for Dovorak). I use multiple profiles and it would have been nice to be able to program that LED for each profile. Or at the very least, use it for something fun. 
  - The seal on the wooden rest has started to wear a bit. I'll likely sand it down and refinish it if gets worse.

Ultimately, I'm super happy with the UHK. The Kinesis Edge would have been an easier option. However, it doesn't have all the features I was looking for and I prefer not to just buy whatever is available on Amazon. If you have a standard board and want to try split, I would recommend the Edge. The UHK is more expensive and takes time to ship, but I feel it's worth it. Especially if you're looking for something a bit more solidly built, more portable, or you need a mouse layers and other customizable programming.

Thank you. This looks great.